Barbara Cartland: Paradise In Penang

Then, when he learnt her history, he understood.

Maisie had been married when she was eighteen to Lord Brambury, who was one of the more influential figures at the Court of Queen Victoria.

That he was sixty when he first saw Maisie was considered unimportant beside the fact that he was so distinguished.

He held many posts including that of the Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and was extremely wealthy.

He had been married before and his first wife had died, having unfortunately failed to provide him with any children.

When he proposed marriage to the daughter of a well-born country Squire, he was being sensible in making sure this time that he had an heir to his riches as well as to his title.

Maisie’s parents were completely overcome and thrilled that their daughter should have received such a splendid offer.

Because she was very pretty, they had always hoped that she might marry well.

They had planned to take her to London for the Society Season.

But before they could do so, she had met Lord Brambury.

Like many an older man had done before him, he fell head-over-heels in love with a very much younger woman. Casting discretion to the winds, he refused to listen to an inner voice that told him that he was far too old for her.

Maisie was indeed everything that he had dreamed of.

She was young, healthy and of good country stock and would surely give him the son he wanted now desperately.

Maisie had little say in what was happening to her. She was told that she was the luckiest girl in the world and that every one of her contemporaries would envy her.

She was swept up the aisle of the fashionable St. George’s Church in Hanover Square in Mayfair.

She had always imagined that she would be married in the little village Church that stood on her father’s estate.

But Lord Brambury was too important.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that Her Majesty the Queen will be present at the Church and a large number of Statesmen, Courtiers and Diplomats will be attending the Ceremony as well.”

He was able to clinch the matter quite easily with Maisie.

He then announced that the Reception would take place in the large house in Grosvenor Square that he had occupied for nearly thirty years.

Maisie was never asked if she agreed or disagreed with all that was being planned for her Wedding Day.

She was told only what had been arranged. This meant that Lord Brambury had given his orders and all her father and mother had to do was to accept them gracefully.

Because it was undoubtedly the most important Wedding of the Season, everyone wished to be present.

On the day St. George’s Church was full to overflowing and the huge Reception rooms of the house in Grosvenor Square were packed with the great and good.

When his friends saw Maisie for the first time they could so easily understand why Lord Brambury was so infatuated with anyone so lovely.

She looked like a piece of beautiful fragile Dresden china.

It is true that one or two of their guests sniggered that ‘there is no fool like an old fool!’

But they kept their voices low, having no wish to offend a man who had the Queen’s ear.

Lord Brambury had in the whole of his successful life never put a foot wrong.

To Maisie everything seemed unreal. It was as if she had stepped from the schoolroom straight into a maelstrom.

Lord Brambury had wished to be married as quickly as possible.

Maisie was therefore hurried from one fashionable dressmaker to another.

She found it extremely tiring to stand for hours being fitted for gown after gown.

On top of all this there were parties almost every night.

The Brambury family was very large and they all wanted to ingratiate themselves with the head of it.

Invitations to luncheons, dinners, Receptions and Assemblies poured in for them and Maisie’s father and mother enjoyed every moment of it.

But Maisie herself saw very little of her future husband.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that before I take you away on our honeymoon I have a thousand and one urgent matters to attend to.”

He smiled before he added,

“I have always found that if I want something done well, I have to do it myself.”

Maisie had, of course, agreed with him and in a way she was somewhat relieved.

She was, in fact, rather frightened of this large and imposing man whose hair was turning grey.

She wondered vaguely what he would expect of her when she was his wife.

She knew of no one who she could ask.

Her mother had always treated her as if she was a very young child and her father made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed that she was not a boy.

She had been educated by a series of Governesses who never stayed in their job for long.

They had found it boring living in the depths of the country when they had no chance of going to London or to any other large town.

“I am sorry,” they would say at the end of a year, “but I do feel as if I am buried here.”

Maisie’s parents could not understand at all.

“After all the woman has a very nice bedroom,” Maisie’s mother said indignantly. “And the schoolroom gets all the sunshine.”

Governesses for ever came and went. Each one started their history lessons with Hengist and Horsa so that Maisie never went beyond Richard Coeur de Lion.

She found history boring and Geography even worse. She learnt, however, not to make any protests but to look as if she was listening wide-eyed to all that they were saying to her.

Nine times out of ten she got away with it.

It was the same expression on her face that she put on when Lord Brambury talked to her before they were married.

It was indeed the same expression she assumed when they set off amid a shower of rose petals and rice to the Station.

They were to travel in Lord Brambury’s private coach to Huntingdonshire and he had planned to spend the first week of their honeymoon at his ancestral home near to the town of March.

Then they would go to his Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire, which he had not used for a long time and he had, in fact, given up hunting ten years ago.

The house was partly Jacobean and partly Tudor and stood on five hundred acres of good Leicestershire soil.

Maisie learnt that it had been in his family for three generations.

“I would never part with it,” he told Maisie’s father. “It is comfortable and quiet and I know we shall not be disturbed on our honeymoon.”

It was during the train journey that Maisie thought that her husband was looking rather flushed.

She had been enjoying the train ride as she had never been in a private carriage before.

“Are you not feeling well?” she asked in a concerned voice, which pleased him.

“I am quite all right,” he replied to his wife. “It was so very hot in the Church and even hotter at the Reception.”

She poured him out a glass of champagne and he drank it thirstily.

“You are a credit to me,” he said with satisfaction, “and you looked exactly as I wanted you to, beautiful and enchanting.”

“I hoped you would like my gown,” Maisie replied. “It was very expensive.”

“You need not worry about that in the future,” Lord Brambury answered in a thick voice.

He drank some more champagne, which seemed to make his voice even thicker.

Maisie had described to Lord Selwyn what had happened when they arrived at Brambury Hall.

“We had dinner,” she said, “and I thought Arthur – looked a little strange. He ate very – little but drank rather a lot.”

Her voice trembled and at this stage was almost inaudible, but Lord Selwyn was listening to her intently.

At the same time he was thinking how lovely Maisie’s pink-and-white skin was.